"When the Giants Come to Town..." is my blog intended to chronicle my thoughts on San Francisco Giants baseball. My special interest is in prospects and the farm system, but of course, will comment on all aspects of the San Francisco Giants. I will also comment on baseball in general, particularly from a fantasy baseball perspective. I hope you will find the site informative, and invite you to join in the discussion.

He's fine. Was taken out as a precaution. He had the wind knocked out of him. Slamming 240 pounds down on your lungs will do that. He was back in the dugout in a couple of innings, chatting it up with the fans.

I have honestly thought a great deal of Kieschnick for a long time, much the same as Brandon Belt - great tools, high ranking pick that dropped much further than expected in the draft, and has showed excellent talent when healthy. At their peak, Roger strongly fits the Giants' needs while Pegs will need to re-learn how to steal a base, and keep a .300 + avg just to be a worthwhile player.

With Roger's arm, bat and power ability, along with great size and athleticism I don't see how Pegs has any leg. If given a healthy season, Kieschnick's ceiling is 25+ HR, .290 avg, 90+ RBIs, and he could be an inexpensive piece of this team for years. And personally, I think he's going to do it.

Watched part of the Fresno game on television as I switched between Fresno and SF games. Roger struck out in the first on a full count fastball low and away that he took and started running toward first as the umpire called him out. His 2-run single in the 3rd was a shot over the third baseman. His hit in the 5th was a bloop to right center that got away from the right fielder and allowed a runner to score. His double in the late innings was a ground rule double to right that he pulled with authority down the line. I believe all his hits were off left handers. He looks poised and comfortable against lefties, at least in this game. APGiantsfan

The bigger problem with Kieschnick is very large contact problems which might well prevent him from ever being more than an up and down guy in the majors. He actually had a pretty significant increase in his bb rate last year which could help, but I think the jury's still out on whether he'll be able to make enough contact vs. major league pitchers for the power to play.

I'm sure that those young Fresno outfielders (G Brown, Pegs, and Roger K) sense the competition between them in case the Giants need to call up an outfielder due to injury or poor performance. I'm hoping to see the Andres Torres 2010 version, but don't have a good feeling about him rebounding because he's coming off 2 straight down years since.

Pretty nice start across the board for the Lil Gints, a lot better than last year. Pitching is going well, and a lot of Dingers. Dingers? What is the world COMING to? I thought the Giants were in the business of ruining hitters left and right.

Speaking of Fresno OFs, I think Gillespie finally didn't get a hit on sunday. That bench is deep for a AAA team: Linden, Gillespie and Dominguez all pinch hit. Now we have Petit versus Wheeler coming tonight!

That Augusta pen, shut down! Struck out 5 of the last 9 outs. Joe Rapp broke a finger on his right hand, out at least a month. Looks like it'll be Houck full time at 1B, Delfino stays at 3B.

Not sure I get why Derek Law is still in Augusta, since it seems like he had a pretty good season there last year and should have earned a promotion. It would make sense if he was being converted to a starter or working as the closer, but to remain a set-up guy in low-A seems odd for someone who I wouldn't have been shocked to see jumped all the way to AA.

I caught three games in Richmond opening weekend and really liked what I saw out of Duvall. He's commanding the strike zone very well and consistently getting himself into good hitters counts and then leveraging those counts. I didn't get to see many chances defensively, but what I saw of his arm wasn't terribly encouraging. I'm not sure what future he has defensively to be honest.

Otherwise it was pretty poor offensive showing for the team. Trevor May showed Jarrett Parker the ultimate disrespect by just pumping fastballs right down the pipe with impunity. And Oropesa seemed to be getting jammed by most everything. Saw a no-hitter though! Even of the 7 inning variety that was fun!

About Me

I grew up in Northern California near the Napa Valley. I got interested in baseball and the Giants by listening to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons broadcast Giants games on KSFO. My early heros were Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and a guy you don't always think of, Jim Ray Hart. When I got older and was in school and early career, I didn't have time to follow as closely, but I tried to look up their boxscores each day and catch an occasional game on TV. One habit I got into at an early age was looking up the stats of their minor league players in The Sporting News. That became more difficult as TSN moved away from comprehensive baseball coverage. Now, of course, technology and affluence has changed all that. The internet is teaming with farm system/minor league information as well as college and high school baseball. Satellite TV enables me to get most of the Giants games on TV. I'm married with 2 wonderful daughters, who like to watch games with me.